Three persons, including a civil defence employee have been arrested for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of offering gifts against reward points in their credit cards, the police said on Saturday, adding that at least 250 persons across the country have been cheated.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Atul Thakur said that the accused have been identified as Abhishek (24), a civil defence volunteer, Manish Gupta (23) and Ashish (25).
The police said that a complaint was received stating that the complainant received a call from a person who offered him gifts against reward points in his credit card and subsequently lured him into paying ₹8,970. The complainant didn’t receive a gift after that and the caller too stopped taking his calls. A case was then registered and a probe was started.
Paytm account
It was revealed that the complainant had made the transaction through his Paytm account. The police analysed his bank account details to which his Paytm account was linked to and found that the account beneficiary was Ashish and Manish was the handler.
With the help of technical surveillance, the two accused were arrested and on their instance, their third accomplice, Abhishek was also nabbed.
During interrogation, the accused allegedly told the police that Manish worked in a call centre before. He got the idea to cheat people using telecalling and database of credit cardholders. He opened nine bank accounts in his name to receive the cheated money. He started this business in 2017.
The police said that the accused set up a call centre and also got credit cardholder’s data from other members of the gang. They let other people join the gang by offering 20% commission on usage of their bank accounts for transfer of cheated money. Ashish and Abhishek offered Manish to use their bank accounts for quick money, the police said, adding that Abhishek is currently a civil defence volunteer and has worked as an Amazon delivery boy.